


The Water Has Cooled

by mamie_eisenhower



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: F/M, It might be time for a calm-my-nerves write-a-thon, M/M, White House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22884403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamie_eisenhower/pseuds/mamie_eisenhower
Summary: Lis Smith has a. delivered the thirty-something gay ex-mayor of a city of a 100,000 to the American Presidency, and b. some personal issues to resolve.All the while, life in the White House goes on.
Relationships: Chasten Buttigieg/Pete Buttigieg, Lis Smith/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 57





	1. I

**February 10, 2022** **  
** **State Dining Room, The White House  
** **Presidential Reception after the annual Governors’ Business Meeting**

It had been a long time since Lis Smith’s feet had ached like that. Coming up on twenty years of chasing campaign embeds across the country in Jimmy Choos --  _ and, as time went on, being chased by them progressively more often _ \-- brought about a certain degree of desensitization. But now, a sharp pain shot through her right arch, searing its course through marrow and muscle up all the way into her knee, and made her jolt and blindly grab the curtain next to her. “Motherf --!”

The person rushing to her left laughed softly as he steadied her, the hands placed on her hips indifferent. “Thoroughly unbecoming language of a Chief of Staff,” he deadpanned, tone serene. Chasten’s voice still held a tinge of amusement when he asked if she was alright.    


Lis laughed a throaty laugh, and made sure he couldn’t possibly discern the undertones of bitterness the precise wording of his admonishment had triggered. “Oh, fuck off, you.”

Then, suddenly serious: “But I’m actually glad to catch you.” She shifted at his questioning glance. “Chasten, I know Saturday morning is about the only scheduled time you get to have with Pete, but -- but I don’t think what I have to -- what I want to tell him can wait that much longer.”

Might be that the wink she knew to be perpetually caught in the corners of his eyes was just obscured by the chandelier’s milky reflection in his glasses. Might be he’d caught on to her dislike.

_ For two generally chatty people, a lot of their pauses sure seemed pregnant and drawn-out lately. _

Brows furrowed, Chasten finally set out to respond, but was alas cut short by his husband’s even-paced steps approaching from behind. Seemingly forgetting in an instant what they had talked about, he turned and ducked into the quick peck Pete pressed to his temple before slinging his arm around his waist. For a split second, their smiling faces, turnt toward each other, possessed a perfect symmetry. 

_ Fuck, they appear so much at ease tonight _ , Lis noted, and, for now, tried her best to ignore the twist-and-turn deep down her chest. The President had been in a good mood all week, sometimes humming what appeared to be an eclectic mix of who-the-fuck-knew-what-improbable-genres-he-enjoyed while going through his briefings: now that Schumer and Pelosi had signed off on the budget, and his State of the Union had been more than reasonably well-received, his first year in office was properly concluded. Finally.   
  
But that, in turn, had cleared the way for the very operation she was trying her hardest to keep under wraps from the public.  _ And all for the private fucking good of the man she maybe, probably loved and his adoring husband _ , she thought, and instantaneously resented herself for thinking.

The matter -- clearly legible in the furtive glances Pete shot Chasten whenever the conversation turned to anything remotely to do with kids, apparent even two years ago in the way Chasten’s dimples carved deeper into his face when they met a baby on the trail -- was that they were ready to adopt. Overdue even, really. Useless to say, a gay First Couple seeking to start a family was fraught with politics, and none of the soulcraft-and-moral type. In order to shield both Pete’s precarious public image and the child, who soon would live and breathe under the glaring spotlight of the global press, each motion of the process had to be considered carefully. And so, one of Lis’s primary occupations as Chief of Staff had become that of family planner, for lack of a better word, in recent days.  _ Shoes she, of all people, had never expected to walk in.  _

The men were still caught up in their own world. _ Let him _ , she reminded herself,  _ he’s at your disposition every hour of the day.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Or at least at the disposition of your title. _

Impatiently swatting away the thought, she tried to at least make her voice sound supple and upbeat as she purposefully pierced their bubble: “Anyway, Governor Whitmer’s got a fabulous handbag -- I’m going to chat with her for a moment.” 

With each clicking step, her feet hurt a bit less.

***   
  


The tub in her generous and sleek, but -- as Congressman Martinez had drily noted, to her dismay, last time he’d visited -- still oddly impersonal apartment was not even filled to a quarter when she stripped down, about an hour later. With a deep sigh, she swung her legs over the brink and lowered herself into the foam. Like frost upon a window pane, a familiar shiver zapped up her spine and put forth blooms across her shoulders. She cringed at the sensation -- the slow warmth of the water barely lapping at her navel reminded her how touch-starved she really was. 

She laid her head down on the enamel and breathed in, controlled, deliberately.  _ Decision time.  _ Without even having to close her eyes, she could see a bubble ascend from the foam and spread across her field of vision. Blinding and letterless, it read the question she’d pondered all evening:  _ Will I or won’t I? _

_ Could I even?  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ What really was the gist of the argument in favor of leaving the West Wing? Okay, let’s make a fucking pro-and-con list like we can’t trust our guts here -- well, we really can’t, so. _

_ Pro: I’m not made for sitting in the same office all day every day and assisting somebody who has already clinched the highest office of them all. I’m a campaign person, and this feels like fucking bondage to me. I wanna go to Iowa, and sleep in hotel rooms, and hook up with journos, and hype up a candidate, and then hype up the next, and the next, and the next. Election cycles are my fucking biorhythm. _

_ Pro: No purpose in staying when somebody else can do the job just as well. _

_ Con: Nobody else can do the job as well. I know  _ him _ , and I know the machinations of this administration, because I fucking hand-picked half of it.  _

Just barely, Lis caught herself in time to turn off the water -- the tub was threatening to overflow. Breathing in the solitary stillness and the steam that filled the room, she let her chest expand, and her eyes became unfocused once again.  _ Con: The optics. _

_ Pro: Fuck the optics. The last president was an orange maniac who swapped out cabinet positions faster than his underwear, and we’re still here.  _

_ Con: I really, really would miss seeing him every day.  _

_ Pro: Let’s not fucking kid ourselves. That’s the entire fucking point of this thought experiment, going cold turkey on him. _

There it was.  _ Teenage Lis would roll her kohl-lined eyes at this mental turn of phrase _ , she thought,  _ all this love-as-addiction bullshit _ . Teenage Lis had been an unforgiving pragmatist, either jaded beyond her years or pretending so well she was that she herself believed it, and that mostly extended to all things amorous. But with her fortieth approaching at an avalanche’s cruel pace, she had mellowed.  _ Or maybe it was being around Pete all the fucking time, being around him and his talent for making everything imbibe meaning and spiritual fucking essence. _

She let her mind wander -- as she did more often than she cared to admit -- to the first time she met Pete, five years ago now in a café in Chicago. He had sported the haircut of an altar boy and an unfortunate pair of pants that made him look like he’d raided his great-uncle’s closet. For a moment she’d feared that going down that rabbit hole of his YouTube videos had been nothing but a frenzy, propelled by her anxiety about the state of politics in this country.   
  
But then -- then he’d opened his mouth. The boy-scout was gone. And Lis had heard the next President of the United States speak … of course, back then, she’d quickly admonished herself for this white flash of overeagerness. It would be a steep battle to get him to DNC chair alone.  _ Still, I was right. Take that. _

At the very latest, she should have known something was up when she’d taken a simply unfathomable dislike to his witty and charming boyfriend. A boyfriend who, it was more apparent every time he looked at him anew with eyes that brightened just a smidge, made him happier than he, the famed wordsmith, was fit to express.

In spite of all this, for some reason, she took more than a year to figure out that her interest in the mayor from flyover country was much more than professional, and more than strictly amicable. Gay was not her usual type.  _ And honestly, neither was dorky _ .

Naturally, she’d been on a plane to his fucking wedding the moment realization struck her. In that moment, not bailing and taking the next flight out to fuck-knows-where as soon as she’d land in South Bend had taken all she had out of her. It had made for a church service that was rather more introspective than her agnostic self was used to, and a few flutes of prosecco downed in rather quick succession at the reception. A one-night stand with some Harvard alum now in local government that wasn’t the right one. 

The water had cooled. Stepping out of the tub, Lis was thankful for the excuse to interrupt her train of thought.  
  


***  
  


At half past eleven, she sat at her virginal kitchen table with a bottle of red, scrolling through A.G. Harris’s Twitter feed, when her phone lit up.

It was Congressman Martinez.

> **hey lis** **  
>  ** **by any chance still up?**

His adamant refusal to use capital letters annoyed her uncharacteristically, but she knew very well she could use the distraction.   


> You know very well the watchful eye of government never sleeps, Martinez.

His response came only seconds later.    


> **i thought we were on first name basis after four nights together**

She huffed.  _ Not in the mood for taking stock _ . Before she could stop herself, she’d typed:

> Your wife may not care about the fucking, but if I was her, you counting times would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The dots appeared, and vanished, and reappeared, and Lis imagined Rafael -- tall and sinewy, with salt-and-pepper hair -- sit in bed, next to his lovely, apathetic wife, and coolly tapping flirty texts to his fucking mistress, who just so happened to be her. 

> **babe our camels got less spine than lindsey graham at this point and you know it**

She grinned, and finally pulled her move.

> Wise choice to invoke former Senator Lindsey Graham when you’re trying to sext me.

While awaiting his response, she undid the sash of her morning robe, pulling her heels onto the edge of her seat, and let her fingers dance along the softness of her thigh’s white flesh.  _ Decision time could wait.  _


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The guys have picked up on something.

**At approximately the same time** **  
** **The Lincoln Bedroom, in the East Wing of the White House**

Chasten shut the door behind them and promptly leant against it, shoulders heavy in his suit jacket. Lifting one hand to his face, he took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose.“You know,” he said, directing a squinting glance at his husband, “I sometimes wonder how you do it -- just energy-wise. I mean, my day’s pretty full, too, but I don’t have foreign leaders blabbering off my ear all day, and I don’t have to manage the world’s biggest budget, and …”   


Laughing softly so as not to disturb the sleeping dogs, Peter approached him and reached behind his neck to massage the sore spots where it connected to his shoulders, his other hand instinctively reaching for Chasten’s. “Don’t worry, the Chinese are on track to overtake us there if we don’t watch our back,” he responded, mirth glinting in his eyes. Answering Chasten’s exasperated sigh at this by playfully tightening his grip, he continued: “Also, I have you to cheering me on to bolster my ego into the unfathomable.”

They undressed in companionable silence. Chasten’s drowsy thoughts drifted back to a year ago, when the mere proposition of establishing a routine, and just  _ being _ , in this venerable space -- the gilded picture frames, the effing chandelier -- seemed as daunting a task before him as any. But then, each and every day over those long first months, it had been Peter who had made it so easy: With his steady breathing while he slept, and his stubborn insistence on making the bed in the morning.    


As they were brushing their teeth in the smaller of the bathrooms, Chasten, spitting out his toothpaste, remarked: “Anyways, did you notice anything with Lis today?”   


“She was pretty chipper in the morning briefing, as far as I recall, but just now at the reception --,” he became pensive, “-- just now, you’re right, I couldn’t have pinpointed it, but something seemed to be up, yeah.” Peter’s brows furrowed.

Chasten took on his pondering tone. Their interaction had bothered him all evening. “Maybe it’s just a health thing. It’s flu season -- and, let’s say, I’m sure plenty of people have wished it upon her.”

“Lis usually powers through those things, though. Not saying she should, but … and also, now that I’m thinking about it, she has been a little short quite often over the last few days.”

“Well, when we were speaking before, she said she needed you tomorrow before noon. So …”

Peter started thinking out loud, biting his lip. “Hmm … could be that she doesn’t want us checking in quite as often and breathing in her neck as she wrangles the adoption formalities for us.” His eyes widened in concern: “Especially because, you know, I feel kind of guilty, because it’s outside of what a Chief of Staff is usually responsible for.”

“Might be it. And about that ...” Savoring the giddiness that he knew zapped through both of them whenever the topic arose, Chasten watched his own worn-out face light up in the mirror. “ I know it’s sort of futile to talk about that when we aren’t even parents yet, but occasionally, I slip into daydreams, and -- and she always plays a big role in the kid’s life. I don’t know why, maybe Lis just seems cut out for the role of badass aunt.”   


Peter smiled at him, and dried off his face with a towel. “You know, she really does.”

***

As they slipped under the duvet, back in the stately bedroom, his sleepy voice still contemplative, he added: “Do you think Lis will ever -- settle down?”

Shifting to face his husband, who was resting on his belly, Chasten propped his head on his hand. This was not a conversation he’d expected or been meaning to have today. “Like, with a guy? And children, maybe? -- Well, I think she’s come to set a pretty high bar when it comes to men. And I think it has grown exponentially higher over time. I mean -- she’s free and independent and kicking ass as it is. And now, Lis just sees no point in settling down when it literally means …  _ settling  _ for her, because nobody even comes close to meeting those standards, you know?”

He paused, and cringed as his voice adopted a more serious tinge than he’d tried for. “Well,  _ one  _ guy does.”

Peter’s face stayed stoic, expressionless. For a moment, the yellow light of the night lamp made the fuzzy contours of his profile catch fire.

Chasten hesitated, suddenly acutely aware of the bridges he’d just burned -- and of a gnawing sense these bridges were not necessarily his to burn. “You know what I am talking about, right, babe?”

An inordinately long while passed before his husband responded. His voice was gravelly and thick with unanswered questions when he said: “I can’t say that I did, but … but now I think you’ve opened up a -- door in my mind that will be very difficult to close.”

Slowly, as if moving through a new viscosity of time, Chasten put his hand on Peter’s warm, bare ribcage. He employed all he had trying his best not to sound accusatory -- Peter was not the villain here. There were no villains, really. “But, babe -- what did you think she felt for you?”

His question lingered there, ricocheting off the richly ornate walls and bouncing back to the two of them. Finally, instead of giving an answer, Peter -- this man who somehow let him love him, this man who was the President of the United States, whose temples looked perhaps grayer in the moonlight than Chasten had ever seen them -- scooted close, nudging him to spoon. And although he couldn’t see his face, the tenderness of his motions and the very way his neck was curling now toward his chest had something unsettlingly mournful.   
  
Chasten felt a knot form in his throat. Just as gently, he obliged. Legs entangled and his hand spread on his husband’s chest, their breathing fell into a common rhythm.

That night, sleep did not come easily to Chasten. His nose buried in the familiar crook of Peter’s neck, and to the sounds of the dogs’ snores, he couldn’t help but think of the day of the first and final debate against Trump, on the Notre Dame campus. Peter had been steady as always, at times statesmanlike and at times humorously deflecting Trump’s attacks, and waging his own, to the thunderous applause of a homefield crowd. 

A fterwards, Lis had rushed towards him, triumph set both in his shoulders and her gait, and she had enveloped him in her arms for a long time, screwing shut her eyes. 

When she opened them again, she was gazing out at the thinning crowd of the arena with a look so utterly bereft that Chasten flinched when he caught it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I forgot to set my alarm to watch the debate -- argh.


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lis stumbles into a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ... my country's essentially under lockdown, and I'm way too pessismistic about finding work in my field after graduating uni to study, so writing this is what it is.
> 
> My thanks to the lovely Pristine, who encouraged me to pick up this fic again after I was kind of meh about it because our guy's no longer in the race. Also, she is a fan-fucking-tastic editor.

**Morning of February 11, 2022** **  
** **The Oval Office** **  
** **  
** These windows. These large fucking windows facing the fucking South Lawn.  _ If I admit to myself right now that I probably dreamt of this, and of just being able to -- prance into here, while the other girls in kindergarten drew their fairytale castles, I’m never going to get this done and quit. So I fucking won’t. _ _   
_

The usher, poor guy had duty on a Saturday, flashed a horse-toothed smile -- some of them still didn’t dare look at her --, and closed the magnificent wooden door behind her with a definitive, expounding thud. The sound reverberated deep within her.

Pete was seated not at the desk but on one of the sofas, which smelled of honey and leather, and for which the cream-colored atrocities Trump and his advisers had sat on had been exchanged at Chasten’s behest during Transition early last year. As he heard the clicking of her heels approach, he stood up, but his eyes were still scanning the document on the low, sturdy table.

Lis swallowed. She felt -- she knew -- this was a now-or-never thing,  _ and who even thinks stuff like that exists nowadays. _

“Sit down,” she commanded him, a bit hoarsely, “and don’t humor me with pleasantries today; I don’t have the nerve for that.”

He gave her a quizzical smile and the rise of an immaculately arched brow as he obliged. _ I hate, hate how I notice these things.  _

“Lis,” he answered, his tone bemused: “We’ve now known each other for -- what, half a decade? I might not be the connoisseur of character I wish I was -- but it’s pretty ...” -- he had to chuckle at his own joke -- “... it’s always been pretty obvious you’re not the kind for pleasantries.”   


A sun-kissed surge of affection suddenly, inevitably, mixed with the cocktail of embitteredness and resolution she’d carefully curated all morning to keep herself from flipping out.  _ Fuck being emotional. And don’t tell me my period’s around the corner.  _ She rolled her eyes, and plopped down next to him, stack of briefs still in hand.   


“I said, don’t humor me. My Uber driver blabbed my ear off the whole ride about how he thinks it’s great Trump is being prosecuted, and blah, blah, blah, but it’s all going down the drain, because no recession president can keep the House and Senate; and least of all the gay, green guy.”

Pete laughed quietly next to her. “So he wasn’t aware that was The Administration personified on his back bench? And you didn’t tell him the corporate lingo we prefer here is ‘youthful and dynamic’?”

“Call the White House ‘corporate’ one more time, and Bernie’s gonna primary you from his fucking hospital bed. Also, I used to wish for a world where everyone’s a pundit. Seems we have arrived.”

She shifted.  _ Time is ticking. Get the roadshow going, girl, or you’re going to chicken out. _ “What are you reading?”

With a sigh, he handed her the first page. “It’s from Raj’s office. A memo on the stimulus package they’ve been working on, and on when to deploy it. Says if this absolute trough on the job market lasts through mid-March in spite of everything we’ve tried, better sooner than later.”

Raj Chetty, their Secretary of the Treasury and a former professor at Harvard, was a good man and a fucking fantastic economist -- she’d made sure of that --, but he was not a natural politician. The primaries for the Midterms would only get heated later that spring, and it would be much preferable to send a message of this administration’s fiscal progressivism then than now in this 24-hour-news-cycle world.

“Well, you know my thoughts on that. We both know that the candidates who are going to be endorsed by the Justice Dems will lose to the R’s come November, so I’d love to knock some of them flat with a one-two punch in May or so, our guys and gals riding both this and Kamala’s announcement.”

Sometimes, after two decades in the business, she still couldn’t quite fathom how she got to say words like these, nonchalantly, in the fucking Oval Office. Speaking to the President of the United States, whom she just so happened to want to fuck.  _ And maybe grow old with _ , noted the little voice that usually only seemed to thrive on G&T’s, but, rather unhelpfully, seemed to have taken up permanent residence recently.

He gave a rumbling chuckle again, and she fucking hated how she craved the validation. “Well, if we keep the House and Senate, it’s all going to be because of your cunning.” His tone got more serious, and he turned to face her, impenetrable gaze boring into hers in a way that made her more uncomfortable than she cared to admit. “What was it you wanted to talk about, though? Chasten mentioned last night it sounded like a big deal.”

_ Fuck. Fuck. Fucking hell. _

Distantly, she registered herself wince at his words. There it was. This was the moment she hadn’t dared to practice last night, after she was done with Martinez; or this morning while doing her makeup; or before, when she left her office and ambled down the fucking corridor into this mess of a fucking situation. And now, the words didn’t come.

The words didn’t come. As she stared into his eyes -- noticing the smattering of fine grooves that the past thirteen months had etched around them -- abruptly certain she could feel her own wrinkles, finer yet, burn into her skin as they incessantly strived for her temples -- the words did not come. 

_ I can’t do it I can’t do it I can’t do it why did I have to fall for him _ , her ears drummed.

A staccato beat had passed. Her fingers curled into the folder on her lap, this folder she had taken with her for whatever reasons.    


_ I can do it. _

Again, she swallowed dry. Once, then twice. He was eerily transfixed by her speechlessness.

Finally this: “Oh, nothing. It was just an idea I had -- about how we’re gonna market the -- the Russia visit. But I thought it through, and it was just a pipe dream. It -- it collides with the rest of our strategy,” she finished, lamely.    
  
_ Fucking coward, why did you bail? And bail badly, at that?  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ What’s now? _

He didn’t seem convinced. He, also, was an utter fucking gentleman, and let the matter slide.  _ Thank God.  _

Nonetheless, the air was out of their conversation. He rose, tone a bit flat as he said: “Well, then -- I think I better get back to Chasten until I’m briefed for the French delegation, at, what, twelve?” A small smile she bet he wasn’t even fucking aware of spread across his face as he checked his watch. “He insisted on cooking brunch himself today.”

They crossed the room unto the doorway for an eternity. Walking behind him, she almost let her longing deep, deep down -- to reach out, and to dig her manicured fingers in the taut shoulders she knew had to hide under that same-old white shirt, and to bury her forehead between his shoulder blades, and to finally exhale -- bubble to the surface. Almost.   


And then, a new, deceivingly mellow thought. Wistful, and stronger in her every blink that passed.  _ Maybe this is it. I love this country, and love serving this country; and I-- love him. And that will not change soon; ever, if I’m unlucky enough.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Why flee it then? _ _   
_ _   
_ _ And why not torture myself some more when I’m already at it? _

He held the door for her, and she made a decision.    


“Pete,” she said, and forced herself to look him in the eyes, “Pete, one more thing I almost forgot: I got something from the Department of Human Services here.” She waved the orange folder in her hand. “It seems -- it seems D.C. approved you guys as adoptive parents. Congrats.”

The swinging door almost hit them and let them tumble to the ground as he reached for her, and hugged her, tighter than she thought he ever had. His cologne, faint as it was, nearly made her dizzy; and for the shortest of moments, she half-feared she might lose her conscience, might wake up weeks or months or decades later, his stubble still scratching her cheek a little too close to her lips, his hands still on her back.

He laughed breathily as he divested himself from the hug. “Chasten --” he began, and she was fairly sure he was about to choke up: “Chasten is going to be so, so happy.”

She had been right, she wryly noted later.  
  


  
***

Lis did not have time for therapy in her busy schedule, and if she was being honest with herself (which she tried to be, now that she was pushing 40), she didn’t have the willingness to pry open the rather useful armature of cynicism she had strained to build over the years, either.  _ But _ , she thought as she sat down in her own office down the hallway and kicked off her shoes,  _ if I did see somebody, I bet they’d have a word or two to say about this fucking sense of shame that overwhelms me every time I even dare to think of being with him.  _

Chin propped on her hand, she started doodling with the heavy White House pen on the heavy White House letterhead. Circles. Then spirals. A collar. A tie.  _ Fucking hell, is this second grade? _ She ripped off the sheet, tore it in half, and threw it in the trash, painstakingly assuring herself there was no imprint on the next one.

It turned out the briefings she hadn’t finished the day before were no better luck. Page two of the Department of Energy report on renewables, and they cited Iowa as an example.  _ Fuck-ing hell. _

It was no secret Iowa had been a turning point in the campaign, and their upset there was already the stuff of legends. That, unfortunately, also meant that for the past two years, she had not lived a day without hearing it invoked in the media, or at work, or by well-meaning friends. 

But Iowa, for Lis, was not the LJ any longer; neither was it field offices, or victory speeches, or even caucus app disasters.

Iowa was a hotel bar at ten past three. Iowa was her third (fourth?) vodka soda, and a rousing mix of serotonin and pheromones. Iowa was Pete, doused in victory and the soft blue light emanating from beneath the counter, raising his glass in front of the key staffers gathered, proclaiming her, Lis Smith, the be-all and end-all of their campaign. Iowa was him looking over with eyes that were alive and awake despite the late hour.

_ And why the fuck are my lips tingling _ , she wondered, almost furiously. She knew, of course. As much as she wished she didn’t, as much energy as she’d invested over the years in suppressing the memory -- she knew very well it was in that very moment that she’d surged forward, captured Pete’s nape in her free hand, and kissed him smack on the lips. 

It was with her mouth on his -- how long had it been? -- that the trance that had befallen her finally slipped, only to be replaced by blaring, red-hot panic. Almost shivering with fear and humiliation, she turned, _ so I didn’t have to look at him _ . 

The first person she laid eyes on was Nina, her expression unbelieving. Desperate, she reached for her, and kissed her, too. And then kissed Mike. And Rodericka. 

Chasten.

She remembered cracking a few weak jokes after that, trying to make light of the awkwardness, drinking some more to ease the pain, somehow ending up in her room with all her senses intact. She might as well have gone on to New Hampshire on no sleep at all. The impression of Pete’s lips against hers, slightly chapped,  _ but soft _ \-- of his coarse stubble, and the cologned warmth his body radiated -- didn’t leave her that night.

When she sat in on the briefing for the Macron delegation two hours later, and the President’s gaze crossed hers while they were discussing the French import-export balance, she wondered, as she had before, if there was some buried part of  _ him  _ that remembered her lips on his. And as she had before, she brazenly took a moment to savor the thought, and only then allowed the surge of guilt to swallow her whole. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe, everyone.


	4. IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pace of the adoption process increases, and Lis is not at all sure how to feel about it. So she distracts herself.

**Monday, February 13, 2022, about 6 pm** **  
****Bottom of the Grand Staircase in the White House**

If you disregarded her stint at Hampton, a small-ish Virginia HBCU, Leslie Lee -- CPA, apolitical soul, mother to four biological children and, for the last seven weeks, one foster daughter -- had lived inside the beltway her entire life. Granted, living so close to the capital meant that friends and family occasionally used your guest room as a home-base for their trips to the Newseum, or the Lincoln memorial, or to go bar-hopping. And obviously, for some of them, visiting the White House was part of the D.C. package. But Leslie herself, in nearly half a century that was spent, all too often, short on money and on leisure time -- she had never once gone there.

_You’re never too old to try new things_ , she supposed, because the circumstances had left her no choice. And so, she gave the rather monosyllabic employee who had led her and Gladys from the Department of Human Services to the bottom of the Grand Staircase -- that, by God, deserved its name -- what she hoped passed for a graceful smile, and tried to swallow her nerves. Gladys inched closer, readjusting the trademark headband sitting atop her graying curls. Even if she had sounded reassuring when she broke the news that little Marisól would maybe, probably, perhaps, spend most of her childhood in these historic walls -- this was new territory for her, too. 

Leslie almost didn’t dare to look at her watch, just in case the President appeared out of some jib door a few minutes early. She didn’t want to set off their interaction on the wrong foot.   
  
For sure, the scent hanging in the air couldn’t be the scent of marble?   
  
Did stone have a scent?

Then, the dampening carpet could no longer hide the footsteps approaching, rapidly and confident, from above; and sure enough, the First Gentleman emerged on top of the fleet of stairs before them. Gladys next to her drew an involuntary, shaking breath.

Chasten Buttigieg, hastening towards them wearing a cardigan and a large smile, was shorter than she’d imagined -- she pegged him to stand barely half an inch taller than herself. There was an assuaging quality about him that was hard to pin down -- maybe the bounce in his step. As she took his outstretched hand, the tension evaporated from the autoclave into which her chest had transformed. His palm was warm, as were the young eyes behind his glasses. All of a sudden, the mental images of snowy inaugurations and dinners with the Queen were gone, and all she could see was a schoolteacher from Michigan, whom God in his mysterious ways had accorded this role.

He introduced himself -- she wondered if he’d ever drop the habit -- and they exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes before he took out his phone to look at the time, and asserted, his tone lilting: “I bet my husband’s on his way -- he’s just bad at keeping track of the time when he’s got his head wrapped around some economic puzzle or other --” 

Vaguely, he gestured toward where she guessed the West Wing was located, and as if summoned by his magic, two silhouettes crossed the corner into the corridor. She squinted -- maybe it really _was_ high time to invest in progressive-addition glasses -- but yes, yes: Unmistakably, that man in the white-shirt, mired in deep conversation with the high-heeled woman walking alongside him, was Pete Buttigieg.

A few of Leslie’s trepidant heartbeats later -- after he had shared a nod goodbye with the woman, who now strode up the staircase, crowned by the chandelier reflecting in her raven hair -- the President of the United States stood next to her. Just like that, flesh and blood. As she’d seen on TV, he briefly squeezed his husband’s one shoulder, and softly exhaled, leaning against the other, momentarily making her feel like an intruder. “Been a day …”

Leslie did not know -- and frankly, didn’t know if it made a difference -- whether the gravitas he exuded was his own, congenital and merely honed by shaping policy, perceptions, and millions of lives daily on the potter’s lathe on which the White House stood. Maybe it was just an artefact of the presidency, like Air Force One was. She hadn’t met enough people in high office to tell.  
  
What she could tell was that the President, in that soft-spoken and earnest-eyed way she’d thought of as a bit awkward up until now, made even the polite chatter he shared with Gladys and her sound consequential. Crucially, she felt her own words take on weight when she returned it, her voice steadying with every word she uttered.

_What an environment to grow up for a child_ , she dully heard herself think as she followed them upstairs into the Residence.

***

**At about the same time** **  
****Office of Congressman Rafael Martinez, Longworth House Office Building** **  
****  
** 1 new message from: Elli Priorities PAC [6:02 p.m]

Elli Priorities PAC did not usually text earlier than 9 or 10 p.m., so Rafael was a bit frazzled when her name lit up on the screen of his work phone. He unlocked his phone, suddenly hyper-aware of his head secretary Elaine’s rummaging for files in the corner of his office.   
  
I’m in a cab to the LHOB, wait up for me.  
  
His astonishment turned into total bewilderment for a brief moment. What was this about? Had something happened? Had someone found them out? Or -- and he almost didn’t dare to acknowledge that was the likeliest reason -- did she merely yearn for release, like he had all weekend?  
  
While his confusion started to thaw, slowly, and melted, and hotly dripped to his center, where it built up into an opaque pool of desire, he let a moment pass to seem nonchalant before he responded.  
  
 **who says i’m not out wrangling for votes?**

And a split second later, to take the edge off, in case he’d been too harsh:  
  
 **joking - i know you guys bugged all of congress and always know my whereabouts** **  
****  
****can’t wait**

Elli Priorities PAC did not respond to that, because Elli Priorities PAC was White House Chief of Staff Lis Smith, and Lis Smith did not coddle the men she had sex with.  
  
At least, that was what he hoped -- that he was the rule here, and not the exception.

Rafael stood up and stretched, straightening his lapel, taking off his tie. He knew there were still condoms in his bottom drawer -- something tugged deep inside him as he remembered his first week in office, when he’d inaugurated the desk with his wife --, but better safe than sorry … yes. Stock shrinking, but extant.  
  
No sense in continuing reading the briefing now that he was already half-hard just thinking about the way some single, spunky strands of Lis’s jetblack bob would brush over her clavicles as she’d lean over him, and how they would draw his gaze down to her firm breasts even if he wasn’t already desperately searching for a way to escape looking in her eyes. It drove him mad that he was always, always too weak to hold her regard, and that he could never tell whether it was lust or just the lighting that turned her irises into ancient onyxes that could just as well have rested in the eye sockets of a sphynx cut from jade.  
  
In a lame attempt to cool off before she was here, he pulled up the New York Times’s crossword puzzle app. Just as he’d finished today’s, and was about to go to the archive, a frowning Elaine knocked and announced Lis’s arrival. Jesus, that scoff -- he’d have to make something up the next day. But now, his throat was too dry. “Yes, thank you, let her in, please. And, Elaine, see you tomorrow!”

Lis was unceremonious in the way she rid herself of her handbag, scarf, and coat. It was strange, seeing her here instead of in her own, sparsely decorated hall; but also strangely, for a moment, it was not her who seemed out of place in his office, but himself. She poured herself a sip of water from the jar on the generously-dimensioned conference table, then sidled up to him, who was leaning against the desk, neither having said a word. 

They did not kiss on the mouth -- never. That was an unspoken rule to which they’d adhered since the first time. But when he put his hand, stealthy in its reverence, on the taut fabric spanning her ass, and inhaled the scent of her make-up mingling with the masculine perfume she was wearing, he almost couldn’t help himself. Instead, he swallowed dry, and struggled to coax his voice into a deadpan. “So, I guess you’re here to talk about the stimulus package?”  
  
She was only half-playful when she grimaced and pinched his bicep in response, a little too firmly. The sensation roused the hair in his nape, and he recoiled a little, lest she could feel how hard he was already. Play it cool.  
  
“Don’t you dare bring up work to me, I had a shit day at the White House.” How he had missed those slightly vulgar overtones the voice of this refined, successful woman couldn’t hide! Her carefully penciled brows suddenly furrowed, and she reached by him to flip something on his desk over. _Thud_. Had to be the picture of him with his wife and then-teenage son by the lakeshore home in Arizona he still had there to keep up appearances. “Also, you know that’s not the package I’m interested in.”

Instead of dealing with his guilt, or groaning at her statement, he chose to give in to his urges, and leant down to worry the pale and fragrant skin of her neck between his teeth. 

***  
  


**Lincoln Sitting Room, Presidential Residence**

“So, Leslie -- how did you decide to foster?” The President -- Pete, to her, she reminded herself -- eyed her expectantly over a coffee table that Roosevelt or Carter had probably sat at. She was still incredulous, so dazed by the fog of dreamlike amazement through which she perceived her surroundings, that she almost forgot to answer. “Um -- well, our kids are almost grown, and my husband was kicked around the foster system himself as a child, had some rough experiences … so we figured, why not try it?”

Sympathetic nods. Next to her on the canapé, Gladys twitched, then cleared her throat. Her authoritative voice filled the room. “Well, then let’s cut to the chase. Leslie here ...,” she turned to face her, “... and her husband have been fostering Marisól for about seven weeks since the death of her mother. She’s almost 18 months old, hitting all her milestones well so far …”  
  
Leslie studied the couple’s faces, mirroring each other in their concentration and their concern as Gladys told them about the tough start in life that little Marisól had had. Her mother had been pregnant with her when she’d been diagnosed with a rare and complex type of pancreatic tumor home in Quito, Ecuador, and she had come to the United States on a travel Visa to seek out a specialist who practiced in the D.C. area. She gave birth, the cancer was removed surgically a fortnight later, and she settled into a simple existence with her daughter -- alone if it weren’t for a distant cousin, hounded by medical debt and insulin bills. The abject father did pay alimony, but he had never seen his daughter, and declared himself unable to care for her when, in December, the cancer came back, metastasized, and killed Marisól’s mother, all within three weeks. 

When Gladys described how the mother, on the eve of a lonely death, had implored her to find a loving home, Chasten sniffed discreetly, and, perhaps unwittingly, scooted closer to his husband on the sofa. A single tear, stubborn in the way it clung to the skin, emerged from under his glasses. Silently, Pete searched his pocket for a tissue and handed it to him, solemnly drawing a soothing thumb across his thigh, once, then twice, while never breaking eye contact with Gladys.

Out of all sudden, Leslie felt a lump form in her throat. Yes, she had cheered when Barack Obama stood on that stage with his Black wife and two Black children back in ‘08 -- because who in their community hadn’t? --, but generally considered herself a pragmatist, who got lost easily in the pitfalls of identity politics. Two years ago, when that man across the table had started racking up delegates in the primaries, and she couldn’t open Facebook without headlines about the moment’s monumental meaning blaring at her, she’d sometimes shaken her head in frustration. By her lights, if her being straight wasn’t an achievement, neither was Buttigieg being gay. The media better concentrate on policy. But now, as she was sitting opposite them -- now, the sweet and simple intimacy between these two men that every kid in America could name suddenly got to her.   
  
Gladys finished her account, her tone still factual: “As I said before, Marisól seems to be completely fine development-wise, but her mother’s death occured right around the time most babies show really strong separation anxiety, around the year-and-a-half mark. Which means --,” she leant forward, scrutinizing them intensely, a gray-maned lioness who no longer cared who it was sitting opposite her -- “that her adoptive parents will have to deal with a double dose of that.”

The men looked at each other for a long moment, then turned back to her. Voice a bit thick with emotion, the President explained: “My mother moved to Washington with us; she lives on the third floor of the Residence, and -- and she is really, really looking forward to caring for a grandchild … we certainly don’t want to over-rely on nannies, if that is what you are talking about.”

Gladys nodded contently. “Very well -- now, Leslie here and I want to tell you a bit about Marisól before you meet her on Saturday, so it would be ideal if you took notes …”  
  


***

  
**Outside Longworth House, Independence Avenue SE**

They’d rushed down the stairs of the office building, avoiding the elevator and the strange glances that came with it, and were now walking towards the taxi stand. Rafael towered over Lis even as she wore her high heels -- which, he now noticed, torn between bemusement and rekindled lust, she had never taken off --, but he had trouble keeping pace with her. Where was it she needed to be so direly?

He could barely hug her -- she stilled in his arms, then patted his shoulder instead of leaning into the embrace -- before she had slipped in a car and been driven off. He was a bit dumbfounded: had she not enjoyed it today? Was whatever had nudged her to come over still bothering her? He turned to look for a cab that was pulling up for himself, but all he could see was a small gaggle of journos coalescing around some poor colleague of his on the sidewalk, and a lone rose vendor in a canvas coat that caught each gust of wind.  
  
All of a sudden, a surge of guilt had him awash. He bit his lip. Maybe he deserved her cold shoulder, cosmically. Yes, most of what he’d told Lis was true -- his wife and he didn’t care deeply for each other anymore, and their marriage had become little more than convenience. But, nonetheless: she certainly didn’t know about Lis, and he had no idea if she would mind the affair or let it slide -- wholly unlike he’d presented it to Lis.  
  
He would buy his wife a bouquet of roses from the vendor. Not to hand it to her, but to leave it on the kitchen table. That much he owed her. 

When Rafael, flowers in hand, ducked into his taxi two minutes later, he hadn’t noticed what had fallen out his pocket while he’d been taking out his wallet to pay the vendor, nor that the press gaggle had dissolved. Right as his cab was turning onto Washington Ave, the red-haired woman with the camera -- having dropped Congressman Gaetz and his non-answers on recent controversial statements to take a picture of him and Lis instead -- picked up the tiny, shiny square. Hunched over against the wind, she examined it.  
  
A Durex wrapper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Enjoyed this chapter? Then I have an offer for you: Pristine -- who edits this fic -- has been accepted into Harvard's secondary school summer program, but currently lacks the resources to go. So she has set up a GoFundMe (link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/pristine-at-harvard).  
> Throw her a few bucks there, and send the receipt and your prompt to petefic4pristine@gmail.com. For any donation north of 30 dollars, I'll write a fic according to your specifications!
> 
> Next chapter should be up very soon.


	5. V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Valentine's Day passes, and the President and his Chief of Staff don't live in the same universe.

**Tuesday, February 14, 2022** **  
** **The Oval Office**  
  
Lis shifted in her seat, furtively glancing at her phone. 2:50 pm. Ten more minutes till the weekly Tuesday image briefing was over. Ten more minutes she’d have to carefully circumnavigate that fucking Examiner article. Ten more fucking minutes to evade the pitying glances of Symone Sanders, whom they had hired as Press Secretary after the glorious flacking she’d done in her stylish living room via her laptop camera during a general that had been warped by the pandemic. Symone and she were friends, but very much the drinks-after-work and not the ice-cream-on-her-couch kind, _and if I’m honest with my petty self, I still kind of revel in being her superior after we played catch-up with Biden all throughout ‘19._

While Vice President Rice and the Secretary of Energy counseled Pete on new internal polling regarding the carbon tax pending in Congress that they needed to push through before the Midterms, Lis’s thoughts drifted off, to the response she’d have to craft about this fucking ludicrous rumor blowing up on Twitter right at this moment.

Like all the most unfortunate rumors, it held a lot of truth: the Washington Examiner, true to form, had “sources” claim that Martinez and her were fucking, and quoted another “confidential source” that Martinez’s wife was distraught. At least the last part was false, hopefully. Twenty years in the business of smoke and mirrors meant she could sniff out liars like unwashed underwear, and Martinez hadn’t been one when he’d told her about the friendship without benefits into which his marriage had devolved. _Still, I have to admit the whole thing bears an uncanny resemblance to my dalliance with Eliot being busted years ago. Consolation: no Russian hookers, and my beau’s much better-looking this time around._

Six minutes. She’d have a spox deny it all. That way, those parts of the press establishment whose print editions you’d only use in an emergency to wipe your ass wouldn’t even pick it up. 

Five.  
  
...

As the cabinet members trickled out after the meeting, she stayed seated. She had the sudden urge to tell Pete, who was, admittedly, not a very gossipy person, about the Examiner story. They’d often have a good laugh during the campaign about the antics of the press, especially if they weren’t endangering them. She wanted to rekindle that, for old time’s sake. _Also, you want to unsubtly telegraph him you’re getting laid_ , the unhelpful, nagging voice provided. 

So she leant over the table, propping herself up on her forearms, and did her best to ignore the tendons in Pete’s agile hands that were flexing like a Steinway’s strings during a jazz performance as he gathered his documents. “So, did someone tell you all of Twitter believes I’m sleeping with Rafael Martinez?”

He was nonchalant, eyes flitting not in her direction but over the notes he’d taken on one of the sheets. The pit in her stomach grew. _Fuck_.

“So, are you? Or is this like your secret double life as a random Nigerian commentator?” With the last word, he raised an eyebrow and finally faced her. She despised how it took her off guard. 

“As a matter of fact -- I am.”

“Is it serious?”

Of course, he’d ask if it was serious instead of making a lame joke like everyone else in this world. _Let’s not forget dude married the first man he ever dated in earnest._

She paused. Even though the window to the hoary silver of the hibernating Rose Garden was ajar, the air was still and stuffy, suddenly heavy with trepidation. She did not know exactly whose it was -- his, for crossing a threshold into the ultra-personal they’d not crossed in a long time, or hers.

“I -- I don’t think so. He’s married, albeit only on paper.” Another beat passed. “And I don’t love him.”

It felt strange, molding that word in her mouth and releasing it into the room for his ears to hear. His voice had a soft hue she would have missed if she didn’t know him so well when he finally answered. “I understand.” He studied her face punctiliously for a moment. “Do you wish you loved him?”

Her larynx swelled almost to a close, and the burning behind her eyes intensified. “No,” she croaked, even if she didn’t know she meant it -- “I don’t. I love --”, she made a sweeping gesture toward the heavy oaken door that hid the rest of the West Wing -- “I love this. I love working. I love having my evenings to myself.” _I love you, and I don’t fucking know if I want to tell you._

He nodded, but for the shortest of breaths, she thought she saw something mournful glint toward the surface of his staid expression. Sympathy. And, she later reflected with a shudder, maybe a notion that signaled he knew something she hadn’t known he knew.

  
***  
  


Tuesdays, Pete and Chasten usually had dinner with Pete’s mother, but this was Valentine’s Day -- and last year, Pete had been on his first foreign trip, to Europe, to assure his relieved colleagues there that Trump would go down in the history books as an aberration. So Mom and he would make do with half an hour before dinner.

When he heard St. John’s strike seven in the distance, he cut off Vice President Rice and former Senator Duckworth, his National Security Advisor, as agreeably as he knew how to, stretched his sore back, and climbed the Grand Staircase up to the third floor of the Residence.

Mom had already sent for a pot of jasmine tea, and was thanking the maid profusely as he entered her salon. _A year ago_ , he couldn’t help but think, _Mom would have boiled it herself_. Now, every time he saw her, it took a little longer for her to get up and hug him; and though her eyes still gleamed, the freckled skin around them seemed a bit more paper-like each day. Recently at dinner, she’d gazed over his shoulder at the portrait of Dad on the mantle, and observed -- in the almost serene tone of an academic giving a lecture about a favorite topic -- that she had begun to plan ahead according to the strength she had when she’d traverse the room to fetch a book.

He shook the thought from his head. Transience could be pondered any other day. Nonetheless, the irony didn’t elude him: that the two notions beleaguering Pete, the man, not the President, were worry for his aging mother, and how he’d measure up himself in raising a child.  
  
As they sat sipping their tea, Mom promptly asked about the adoption. He had noticed a change in the way she talked to him in the years since he’d come out -- there was still a diffidence some might call reservation, still their common tendency to evade the sticky and the personal for sober rationalization; but underneath it, something else had bloomed. A gilded warmth that came with being more wholly open to each other.

“So Peter, when are you and Chasten bringing Marisól home?”

He smiled. Schooled as her tone was, her anticipation was clearly legible in her face. “Well, we’re to meet her this next Saturday at the Lees’ house. If that works well and she takes to us, they’ll come here a few times over the coming week so she can acclimate. And then --,” he swallowed, suddenly overcome with emotion, “-- after that, we’re going to be her fathers.”

She reached across the dainty table and took his large hand in her small one. She sighed. “You know, when we took you home from the hospital, we were a bit lost at first. New in the city, next to no support system, both academics who knew more about books than kids. And then -- it all just fell into place. Our world recentered.”

Suddenly, Pete had an overwhelming need to lay his anxieties bare to her: anxieties -- fears, really -- he had only half-acknowledged to himself, too busy and too timid and too adept in compartmentalization to free them from their aching hotbed somewhere in between his heart and spleen. His tongue dry, he was dimly aware of the urgency of his voice as he asked: “But Mom -- what if I’m not good at it? What if I can’t be good at it, no matter how hard I try, because I’m President, and I don’t have enough space in my heart, and time in my day, for both the country and a daughter? What if -- what if I disappoint Chasten?”  
  
A beat passed. She tightened her grip around his wrist.  
  
“Peter …” she began, “Peter, a week before your father died, while you were announcing here in D.C., we had a talk. We talked about our time together. It was hard, but it was also good for me, and good for him, because we talked about how he’d live on a little bit in his students, and in me; in you of course. And …” she batted her lashes, that had become wispy and translucent: “... and the greatest gift Dad had to give is the same gift you have: you both care. Too much for your own good sometimes, but you both care. Chasten knows that. Any kid you raise will know that.”  
  
It took a moment before he could respond, and his voice was a bit shaky as he thanked her. Yes, he’d have to work hard to overcome his fear of failing as a father, and wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever be without it. But his gratitude, he hoped she knew, was for much more than her reassuring words.  
  
  
***  
  


When he went downstairs twenty minutes later to slip into the walk-in closet and throw on the soft sweater and dark pair of jeans Chasten had gotten him for Christmas, he was still so buoyed he couldn’t keep himself from taking two, three steps at once, not caring about the amused glances of Frank, the usher.

He was looking forward to the evening. From the Presidential study, he retrieved his gifts -- his husband, although he insisted he never looked, had always had a game-show-worthy aptitude for stumbling across them in the wardrobe. A cheesy card in which he promised to take him to see _A Chorus Line_ sometime soon, in case there wasn’t a nuclear war. A collection of Toni Morrison’s writings on love -- poems and novel excerpts --, which he had annotated with little remember-whens one late night in the Oval, careful not to smudge the ink. A round tin of Michigan fudge.

Dressed in a dark suit sans tie, Chasten was waiting in the dining room when he shyly slipped in, wearing that smile that still made his heart hammer in his eardrums. He was the President of the United States, but he felt like a schoolboy; or at least, felt how he thought he’d have felt if he had granted himself crushes back then: high on his infatuation.

Reaching out for the man he loved -- he yearned to have the familiar sturdiness of his body pressed against his own, he hungered for the warmth of his lips, the gifts on the table lay long forgotten --, he couldn’t possibly fathom how he had thought himself weak and incapable just minutes before. Kissing Chasten felt secure. So he let himself fall deeper.

When he pulled back, he whispered against his husband’s smooth-shaven cheek -- because he was afraid his voice would break, dared he speak aloud: “I have a crush on you, you know?”  
  
Chasten chuckled, and tightened his arms around the small of Pete’s back.  
  
“I know.”

  
***

 **  
** **Wednesday, February 15, 2022** **  
** **Office of the White House Chief of Staff**

Lis’s day had already been shit before Martinez texted her.

She’d gone out with a few other staff who were single last night, most of whom were considerably younger and less senior than her, to an entirely overpriced cocktail bar near Dupont Circle. But the cost of the drinks hadn’t prevented her from ordering way too many, because she always, always forgot that at 39, a hangover could be a motherfucker. So she’d woken up with a throbbing headache and bags the size of a fucking Birkin under her eyes. She’d arrived late to the morning briefing.   
  
_And there, Pete had looked way too loose and relaxed to not have been fucked into oblivion last night._

Then, they’d barely eked by a fight, which hadn’t happened in years, maybe ever. With a smile so wide it barely fit on his face, he’d inquired about the proceedings on Saturday: to spare the Lees and Marisól from the media’s attention, and to guarantee their safety, Chasten and he would have to be driven incognito. And obviously, the convoy would have to be disguised as well -- there was nothing subtle about four black SUVs with tinted windows turning up in an ordinary neighborhood.  
  
“Chasten had the idea that we could use wigs and fake glasses,” he said, and the way his eyes brightened as he pronounced the name of his fucking husband ripped open a festering and putrid wound deep inside her.  
  
“Well, he’s a drama teacher. If all you’ve got is a hammer …”  
  
_Where the hell had that come from?_ In shock, she watched his brow furrow, watched his lips tighten, but somehow couldn’t pull the brakes: “I think Chasten should probably just concentrate on picking the fucking china, and let the Secret Service do their job.”

 _Fuck.  
  
_ _I better k_ _ill myself now._

The first spring birds were frolicking in the Rose Garden.

Pete cleared his throat. She could see he was straining to keep his tone even, and her face began to burn in shame for her outburst. He said, stiffly: “Well, I will be certain to mention the idea to them.”

Something not easily definable crossed his features. She hoped to dear God it wasn’t pity. “Do that,” she managed to press out.

“Lis, you are dismissed for now.”

Those words had echoed in her ears all day. In six years, she’d never once seen Pete “dismiss” somebody. _In fact, it’s been more than once that it’s fucking driven me mad how much time a single awkward Midwesterner can squander on the daily just hinting to people that it’s time to make an exit._

This stung. _Stung? You cried like a fucking highschooler in love with her English teacher when you got back to your office._

And now, three sorely unproductive hours that had further soured her mood later, a text from Martinez lit up her phone.

> **nice spox statement, lis**

Seconds later:

> **so what is it we do? continue not fucking?**

****She sighed, and responded how she felt like responding, because she lacked the strength to even aspire to see beyond her current moment. Her chest was an empty, arid cavity.

> I generally don’t enjoy being a liar. I’d rather stick to what I said from now. 

She almost had time to continue signing off the Russia visit timeline before his answer came -- three texts in rapid succession. Reading it, she tried desperately to let it evoke something, anything, in her.

> **i lied. my wife doesn’t know, so thank you for the denial**
> 
> **i still kept seeing you though, despite my guilt** **  
> ** **  
> ** **because i couldn’t get you out of my head**

The little laugh she gave scared her in how bitter it was.

> Well, Rafael, I’m truly sorry then.

> I know the boat you’re sitting in. 

The dots danced on her screen.

> **is it the president?**

****Unbelieving, she stared at her phone, then blinked, and stared again. Her hand grew sweaty as she wrote back, not bothering to correct her typos:

> How tje fucking hell do you  
> 
> 
> know? 
> 
> **you get the same expression when you talk about him that i try to hide when i’m with my wife and thinking of you**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is nigh, folks! 
> 
> As always, I'm very curious of what you think, and greatly value any feedback!


	6. VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little Marisól meets her dads. Lis sees eye to eye with a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time, but I got stuck on my "proper" writing, switched languages, and finally let Pete and Chasten meet their future daughter. Because I'm not a monster.
> 
> Thanks as always to Pristine, whose skills as an editor are unflinching.

**Saturday, February 18, 2022**

**West Executive Avenue**

It had been more than a year since Chasten had ridden a car that didn’t look like it had been built after the design of a James Bond movie scriptwriter, so he had to hold back a laugh when he saw the convoy of beat-up Chevys that was to bring them to the Lees’ -- equipped complete with suction cup sunscreens to make up for the lack of tinted windows. Jamal, their lead agent, apparently misread his bemused expression, and tried to reassure him: “Don’t worry, those are standard issue undercover vehicles that meet our usual safety guidelines. Bullet-proof panes and all.”

They were really doing this. Peter and him -- Jackdaw and Jubilant, while they were with the Secret Service -- were really on the way to meet the girl they’d learn to love, and learn to raise. He wasn’t usually in the business of prescribing to himself what memories to make, but this -- this was something they’d think back to. He knew too well what the air smelled like on those days, and that soon, a strange hyper-awareness of his body’s movement through space and through time would set in.

He’d come out. He’d gone on a first date with Peter. He’d witnessed his campaign announcement, shaking uncontrollably. He’d stood on that stage in Iowa, with an unbelieving laugh stuck in his belly and the tears of a true believer coating his throat. He’d spent a first night in the Lincoln bedroom, which had still seemed almost mockingly imposing, and pressed a hand to Pete’s softly heaving chest -- the only living, present, breathing thing here; the only thing that wasn’t leaden history. But history they’d made.

And now, they were doing this.

Peter next to him put a gentle hand on his shoulder, pulling him back to Earth. Beneath the baseball cap, his face looked almost boyish, but his eyes were ages old as always. Now, concern was darkening them like a breeze sweeping ragged clouds over a summer sky: “You alright, love?”

Chasten nodded -- he had neither the time nor the words to lay out his tangled emotions -- and looked over his husband, disguised from head to toe in baggy casualwear. He let out a startled laugh. “My God, Peter, I’m pretty sure they raided your closet back before we met to collect this outfit … I mean, the fit of these pants ... ”

Self-consciously, Peter tugged at the seam on his thigh. A sly smirk spread on his face, and he responded, with barely veiled awe in his voice: “‘Daddy Jeans’ is what they call this style, I believe …"

***

The Lees’ home was located in a less showy pocket of Chevy Chase, one of these houses that seemed larger on the inside than at first glance. They’d slipped in through the back door, Leslie’s eyes bulging a little at the cohort of Secret Service agents shadowing them. A bit sheepishly, Peter had apologized, and apologized again when he couldn’t take her up on the offer of cheesecake and a drink -- there was a safety protocol to follow.

And now, she was leading them into the living room, where her own kids and husband, an accounting professor at Howard, were expecting them. And tiny, 18-month-old Marisól. Chasten was glad there were no cameras in his face, no statements to be given.

In the doorway, Peter stalled a bit, and finally took off his baseball hat. He looked a little distraught, his jaw set less unflinching than usual. Chasten knew why. They hadn’t talked about it in a long time -- on his part, at least, for fear he’d further rouse anxieties that were unfounded --, but as long as Chasten has known him, Peter’s aching desire to raise kids had been double-edged: yes, he’d pour his heart and soul into being a father, but would that be enough? Could the time spared in the day of a good mayor, a good candidate, a good president ever suffice to form a strong and lasting bond? 

Chasten knew these self-flagellations were hogwash. He’d seen Peter with his nieces and nephews, with kids on the campaign trail, and his heart had bloomed.

Leslie opened the door, and Chasten took his husband’s hand, tightly squeezing it once. Together, they entered the room.

***

  
Marisól made herself heavy in his lap the way kids do when they are tired -- 20 pounds of miniature human atop his crossed legs on the Lees’ carpet. Probingly, he bored his index finger into her belly button under the polka-dotted shirt she was wearing to tickle her there, and she gave the most bell-like little giggle, writhing and twisting with laughter. He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t been good with kids -- maybe it was their utter lack of pretense --, but this felt almost _too easy_. As if there was a catch to come, because there usually was. 

She’d clung to Leslie at first, hiding her wise little face in the folds of her sweater, but had soon taken his outstretched hand for inspection -- comparing the size of his palm to hers, twisting his wedding ring around his finger in a way that made his guts churn right along with it. Finally, she’d directed her shimmering glance, which was intensely focused in a way that very few people manage to haul into adulthood, fully toward him, stood up on wobbly knees, and managed to take his glasses off his startled face.

And now, ten minutes later, he’d forgotten about everything that had ever meant anything to him, so aching had his love for the girl in his arms grown already. Behind his newly smeared glasses, tears pricked in his eyes. A little embarrassed, and helplessly awash in this lake of emotion, he looked toward Peter, who was seated at the edge of the carpet, to throw him a lifeline.

For a split second, Peter blankly stared back, then arranged his face into more human folds and returned a smile, slightly pursing his lips as if he’d wanted to articulate something but had decided against it. Almost abruptly, he turned back to Leslie’s refreshingly intrepid preteen son, who was quizzing him about the Space Program, and carried on the conversation. 

Suddenly, a flood of unwelcome thoughts barged in.

Was Peter scared Marisól wouldn’t take to him as she’d taken to Chasten? 

Worse, was he having second thoughts?

At once, it hurt he couldn’t have a frank conversation with his husband, just the two of them, and perhaps Marisól, with her curious glance and quill-drawn, skeptical, perpetually-knitted eyebrows that resembled Peter’s own, when he was in deep thought, so much. But that wasn’t an option -- the Lees were here, in their bright and impeccably tidy living room, and Gladys, and Jamal of the Secret Service.

He turned Marisól on his lap so she was standing on his thighs, held up by him, and he could look into her face. “Marisól,” he cooed, “Marisól, why don’t we go visit Pete over there?” He rotated her in his husband’s direction.

She regarded him for a moment, then declared in the almost stately fashion he’d always found hilarious in small children, no matter the circumstances: “No.”

Huh. On one hand, she was 18 months old, and it would have been a miracle had she understood each word he’d said; but on the other, Chasten wasn’t in the business of disrespecting a kid’s autonomy where it wasn’t necessary. So he continued listening to her babbling, which sounded like, and maybe was, its own little language, with the natural way she intonated her sentences. She was explaining to him her toys: a pink teddy bear, a car that was missing a wheel, a Barbie doll with an impressive braid.

Suddenly, something seemed to catch her attention, and she whipped her head around so her locks were flying. The Lee boy -- Marcus was his name -- was showing Pete some model starship contraption that could rev its engines, apparently much to his husband’s delight. Determined, Marisól got up, picked up the doll while nearly teetering over, and toddled over to them. Promptly, she put it in the much-too-small cockpit of the plane, stiff arms and legs sticking out, her Barbie smile as vast and void as the universe she was supposed to gaze into. 

Peter stifled a laugh, then allowed it to rumble freely and rise to the ceiling. A smile of his own spread on his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and infusing them with a warmth that only grew more palpable when Marisól turned toward him to register his reaction. 

In vain, Chasten tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

An hour later, they were changing her diaper in the cramped laundry room, laughing -- for now -- about the stench, while Marisól crowed happily at the wipe tickling her. In her presence, each joking word between them had taken on a new weight, that, maybe, would lose its talismanic sheen as soon as they’d make it explicit. 

But in the careful, devotional way Peter was now dedicating his hands to the task, Chasten was sure he could glimpse a previous iteration of him: the boy who, at 15 and 18 and 20, had strained to keep those same wrists straight; who, every day, forfeited that opaque tide of desire lapping at him for the bright and clear calling he felt; who, except in the darkest and most lonely of nights, hadn’t dared imagine a future like this.

***

**Monday, February 20, 2022** **  
** **State Dining Room**

Another fucking banquet. The American governors had been replaced with Eastern European ministers. The women few and far between, peroxide blonde like they were applying for a gig on Fox; the men’s brows, heavy, crooking, like the accents that danced upon the letters of their names, whenever someone made another joke that did nothing to lighten the mood. And they weren’t meant to. She wasn’t sure what their goal was -- _probably to prove to one another and themselves -- ourselves -- that this fucking government business isn’t a sweatshop sucking the soul out of all of us._

She tensed up at the thought, resented herself for her resentment. It wasn’t the workload that troubled her, she knew that. It was the fact that today, paradoxically, a state banquet at the White House didn’t seem half as glamorous to her as a cramped office in South Bend, plotting the first steps of a presidential campaign that would lead her to that very banquet. 

The rumbling chuckle of the Polish Ambassador startled her out of her gloom-dredging thoughts. _At least he’s stopped touching my arm all the time, I guess._ She gave a sharp, false laugh of her own -- its sound may have brushed the purple fray of hysteria --, and lifted her gaze from the plate, chancing a quick glance over to the far end of the table, where, half-hidden behind painstakingly arranged floral sprays she had long forgotten to appreciate, the President was seated. She scrutinized him, gleaming shards and bits with every glimpse she dared to throw, gathering them up, casting them toward a mosaic she hoped would elicit a response in her that wasn’t bitterness and self-pity. _Fucking emotional masturbation, that’s what it is._

Pete had a way about him that inspired a clarity of mission in people, allies and opponents alike. He exuded -- and probably sought to exude -- this strangely anachronistic belief in a border between what was noble, and what was just, and what could be justified, and what was wrong. A winding border that had to be excavated and reinforced rather than created anew every morning, through discussion, and through reading books, and through holding one’s own self up to the mirror of congruence. Some thought that belief was naïve, a Hollywood cliché, all too idealistic for the man overseeing the world’s largest economy and what was, supposedly, the greatest country on Earth. Some thought it was insincere, a phony facade contrived to exploit people’s better angels. A few still found it uplifting. _And those few had better fucking turn up to the polls for the midterms._

Today, it hurt to admit, as she looked at his small frame between the large ones of Orbán and Duda, aspiring autocrats whose one firm commitment was to perfecting their respective governments’ alloy of homophobia and ethno-nationalism to make it as unyielding as steel -- today, she belonged to the first camp. That of the skeptics. Those who believed the world, and the world of politics in particular, was too wretched not to defile nobility, too unkind to permit kindness. Sometimes she missed being able to buy into the illusion. Sometimes she still did.

Now Pete laughed along with the Viségrad leaders in a learned way that didn’t reach his eyes, and made her realize how much he’d really aged since he’d taken office. The light of the chandelier -- _how much opulence could you really get used to?_ \-- cast that furrow between his eyebrows, the one that hadn’t yet been grooved when she’d first met him, five, six, no, seven years back, into sharp relief, just for the span of a nod of his head. _That’s what he’ll look like when he’ll scold those children of his. Not that they’ll need much scolding,_ she was sure.

Briefly, she wondered if an onlooker would say similar things about her face, her laugh -- but then, her gaze accidentally crossed his, and she could feel her features become permeable to him, and she ducked her head in a way she’d long thought lost to her girlhood, and scoured her purse for her lipstick. 

***

At the reception, she was looking for Tammy Duckworth, whom she was glad every day had been picked as National Security Advisor. She wanted to commend her for her Sunday show appearances the day before. Iran was stickier than usual. _Even stickier._ Right as she had managed to spot Tammy’s wheelchair, blue gown, and sardonic grin -- the same she wore whenever the conversation turned to John Bolton, a predecessor of hers, as it did rather frequently --, Pete turned up out of nowhere. He seemed to be purposefully approaching her -- which didn’t necessarily have to bode well for her. They’d not spoken, not about anything that wasn’t strictly shoptalk at least, since her _dismissal_ last week.

He cleared his throat, and smiled a benign smile. “That ambassador-seat neighbor of yours sure seemed like a piece of work.” The exaggerated fashion in which he lowered his voice, almost to a whisper, had something comical. _Or maybe not exaggerated. He’s the fucking President. Every single soul here is straining their ears to catch his words._ A bittersweet notion entered her mind: _Maybe the railroads laid down when I worked oppo all these years, for his campaign and all the others, maybe they’ll forever direct my trains of thought. Maybe that’s just who I’ve fashioned myself to become._

“That appears to be something of a common tendency with them,” she finally managed to reply. His chuckle emboldened her. He was in a good mood. “I wasn’t sandwiched between the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum of democratic erosion, at least,” she added conspiratorially, because making him laugh gave her something she craved. _Emotional -- fucking -- masturbation._

“Now --,” he slightly doubled over with quiet laughter, the hand with the wedding ring pressed to his heart in a way that made her own ache, and replied in a mock-professorial tone “-- you see, Lis, I believe the Gentlemen in question would take umbrage at your choice of words there.” He feigned surprise. “Not the ‘democratic erosion’ part, exactly, but the ‘sandwiching’ …”

“So you’re the President of the United States of Innuendo now, huh? What’s gotten into you, Pete?”

When he looked at her, every trace of the teasing they’d just engaged in had been wiped from his features and been replaced with a golden sheen, so sincere it seemed almost pious; and she wanted nothing more than to bask in his expression, and bathe in it, and greedily gulp it down, _and barf it all up later, when I get home._

Even through the static in her ears, she was sure she didn’t imagine the quiver of his murmur when he began, hesitatingly and suddenly shy: “It’s more of a ‘who’ than a ‘what’, to be honest.” She avoided cutting his earnest answer off with another vulgar quip-- it took more strength than she cared to admit. “I wanted to bring this up with you anyhow. Chasten and I -- we’re just -- we just have so much to be thankful to you for. For everything. But especially for facilitating the whole thing with the adoption papers. Because if it wasn’t for you, we might not have met Marisól. And I know you never want kids, but -- I’ve seen her once, and the adoption isn’t even through, but I feel like I’m always going to carry her in my soul. I --” He turned slightly away from her. Although she couldn’t see his tears, she could hear the way they’d thickened his voice. 

“Sorry,” he said, glistening eyes now trained on hers again. 

“It’s alright,” she replied, and her voice seemed to come from every corner of the buzzing room at once, closing in on them, foreign. “I can’t even imagine.”

He nodded. Then his face lit up, eyes shifting just slightly to her left. Someone was coming towards them. _And by the way he’s grinning, it must be --_

“Chasten,” he exclaimed, “come here for a moment, love.”

Side hug. Eyes locked. Lips pursed, as if they would go for a kiss in any other setting, _because of course they fucking would._ The First Gentleman’s hand squeezing the President’s shoulder, then resting on it. She could have recited that sequence from memory.

“What is it?” Chasten adopted that low, conniving tone that had been theirs, _just theirs_ , a moment earlier, made it so much more melodic. “And thanks, by the way, babe -- I guess it wasn’t too smart a move to talk family with the First Lady of Hungary. Oops.”

Slightly leaning against his husband, as if to stick it to Anikó Lévai, _but probably not even fucking aware of it,_ Pete said: “I was just telling Lis how -- grateful we are to her. For everything. But especially for letting us meet Marisól.”

She fucking hated, hated, hated the look in Chasten’s eyes as he thanked her. Not the softness. That other, more opalesque layer of emotion hidden behind it. The layer she still couldn’t quite decipher after so many years. She’d have loved to think it was condescension, but it wasn’t. _Why are you antagonizing this man?_

_You know why._

After a minute, Pete was summoned by Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, whom they’d made the Under Secretary for Eastern Europe. Side hug. Eyes locked. Shoulder squeeze. He nodded Lis good-bye, and left behind a great, white canvas of softly tremoring silence. 

“Actually,” she let her voice scribble on it, in confident and slanted writing, “actually, I was just looking for Tammy.” 

***

She had changed out of her gown in her office with the high ceiling and the drawers full of secrets, and slipped into the black pair of jeans she kept there. It hadn’t left her feeling less drained. Out of habit (as she did whenever she felt drained, or sad, or bored, or happy), she opened Twitter -- on her alt-account, just in case she liked something incriminating on accident. FiveThirtyEight’s first Senate poll for the midterms was out: generic Dems against Republican incumbents, generic Reps against Dems. A few real names. The Florida primary was heating up. Martinez had told her a few weeks ago that he considered throwing his hat in the ring for Arizona.

Something familiar tugged inside her, and this time, she didn’t push it down. It felt good, working and thinking and breathing in an environment where Pete had receded from her sight, almost into the abstract. The President whose virtues her candidates would extol on the campaign trail. Not the man she loved, that she’d have to brief every day. Granted, she couldn’t flee his presence, or his name, or that of his husband, or that of the little girl she’d help introduce to the world a few weeks from now -- but she couldn’t have if he wasn’t the President, either. 

Fuck Chief of Staff.

_Let’s make the Senate my motherfucking bitch._

_***_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, y'all.
> 
> Anybody got requests for the epilogue? I have a few ideas, but have not settled on one.


	7. An Epilog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this house, I won't allow any slander of Linda Thomas-Greenfield. 
> 
> (Slandering certain other Biden appointees is permitted.)

**Wednesday, November 8, 2028** **  
** **The White House**

It may well be conceited, Pete thinks as he returns the Venezuela brief to its folder -- it may well be conceited to ponder impotence while sitting at the Resolute desk, looking out at the Oval Office, from which you have worked for the better part of the decade. It may be conceited, but it’s also true: Rarely has he felt more powerless than here and now. It’s an observation that only ever takes on sharper contours as the years go by: When what you move is momentous -- unfathomable, maybe thankfully so, in its dimensions, in the sheer numbers of lives it bends --, what you can’t move is even more so.

The flurry of the morning after the election has long died down. He’s spoken with the President-Elect, and Alexandria as well, and he has tended to the business of the day. A couple of hours ago, the sun -- which is already as pale and dusty as only a winter sun can be -- has settled outside the windows to the South Lawn, and with it, that dull something he knows to be grief has settled in his bones. 

He looks at his watch -- the one Chasten gave him that night in Berlin. The leather band is a bit scratched. It doesn’t really matter. He feels a bit scratched as well. Half past eight. Time to go and be a person.

***

When he enters the Residence, he can hear faint music from the living room, something tinny and upbeat. He climbs the stairs to their living room. His husband and daughter are sitting on the sofa, entranced by the musical on the TV. Seeing them like that -- the way her posture mirrors his, the way she smiles with her whole face and body at the dancers on the screen --, a part of him believes genetics must be a hoax. For a few seconds, he just stands there in the doorway, watching; like parents have stood in doorways from those first, rosy rays of the dawn of time; absorbing the two of them in their absorption.

But Mari’s ears are young, and she lifts her head, and prances towards him, and hugs him so hard they nearly topple over, and buries her pointy little face in his ribcage. “Have you ever seen the Book of Mormon, Papa?” 

From the couch, Chasten gives him a tight-lipped grin. He looks as if he’s had a long day, too. Who among them hasn’t? Pete bends down, and flicks her nose, because he always does. “I believe I have, honey. You know, when Daddy and I still lived in South Bend, he’d take me to the theater sometimes. There, or in Chicago. Did you like it? -- And why aren’t you in bed, anyways?”

“Daddy said I could wait up for you, because you were so busy for so, so long before the election.” She gestures to the TV, her whole body still rapt. “I like it. But it’s not as good as Legally Blonde. In this one, everybody looks the same. Everybody’s got a shirt and tie on all the time.”

“Well -- I’ve got a shirt and tie on all the time, too, don’t I?” He sits down next to Chasten, leans his head against his shoulder for the briefest of seconds, then pats his lap so Mari can sit on his knees. Too soon, she’s going to outgrow that anyway; and then Joseph will as well, until the coming years have washed over them like those past have, and they are left with teenagers who won’t talk to their dads anymore.

Chasten puts an arm around his back. “Tough day, babe?”, he inquires, and from that achingly familiar way his brows are knit over the rims of his new glasses, he knows the answer.

Pete is overcome with an overwhelming urge to be honest. Truthful -- that he tries to be with his staff, too, and the public, as far as is possible at least. But honesty is a different animal. Honesty is labor, and honesty is a dangerous tide, and a muscle that weakens when idle for too long. He doesn’t try to hide the defeat in his tone. He’s played Consoler-in-Chief all day. “Well -- Alexandria handled it well, considering -- with that tiny margin in the Electoral College -- it’s just a shame. Haley was gracious on the phone, I’ll give her that. We kept the Senate. I can’t imagine what it was like for the Obamas after Trump won.”

“I talked to Michelle today. She told me how grief-stricken she was in ‘16, how desperate to distract herself. In any case -- like you said -- Nikki Haley is no Donald Trump. If she doesn’t die in home confinement at Mar-a-Lago, let’s consider it a victory …” Chasten’s voice fizzles out, and that word, “victory”, that he wishes wouldn’t sting so much today, hangs in the room, like an apple gone rotten clings to its branch.

Mari has lost interest in Andrew Rannels belting his heart out on screen, and has started playing with the ends of Pete’s loosened tie. He doesn’t have the energy to check if her fingers are clean. “I think,” she says, and emphasizes every syllable -- it’s clear where she’s picked up her sense for theatrics -- “that it is ca-la-ti-mous that Alexandria didn’t win.”

“That’s quite a big word for a little lady like you there, Mari -- can you say that again for me and Papa?” Chasten’s brow shoots up, and he curls a finger into Pete’s shoulder. It’s a little code they’ve happened upon, reminding each other to savor those moments for a time they know is inching up on them, when their hair is grayer and their nest is empty. Pete collects them like stamps, those moments, because he sees too little of Chasten and the kids anyways. But that’s a deal long sealed.

Mari loves long words, and loves teaching them to Joseph, who’ll believe just about everything his big sister states when she puts on her professor voice. “Ca-la-ti-mous. It means when something is really bad and dumb. Like when Joey and I smashed that lamp that belongs to the people of the United States.” She nods sagely.

Pete belts out a sincere laugh, for the first time today, probably. “That was a ca-la-mi-ty, yes, love. But you tried to make up for it, didn’t you, when you wrote that apology letter? And made that little drawing for the nice people at the archive?”

Chasten catches his glance, and, ever the teacher, finishes the thought for him. “Papa,” he says, putting a finger under her chin in mock-gravity, “is just saying that we like giving people a chance. We wish Alexandria would have won and we could have left her little notes here in the chimney after we move out, like we planned --, but Ms Haley will be our President after Papa is done. And we will let her do her job. And when she does something we don’t like -- well,  _ then  _ we tell her.”

***

They’re sitting on the couch,glasses each drained. Neither has reached for the bottle of wine to refill them. Marisól is in her room, next to Joey’s, and at least pretends to sleep. More likely, she has her nose buried in one of Astrid Lindgren’s books. Pete is pretty sure he ruined his eyesight at her exact age by reading with a torch under the covers, so they’ve told her to at least use the lamp on the nightstand. “But how will I turn it off in time when you come checking on me?” she’d asked, standing on her tippy-toes and lifting her chin and slyly studying his expression, as if she’d cornered him. “Well,” he’d sighed, stifling a laugh: “I guess you’ll just have to practice tricking us. Makes for a livelihood in politics, I’ll tell you that.” --

Chasten interrupts his train of thought by taking his hand with both of his own. He sounds strangely wistful: “Ready for bed, baby?” 

Maybe he is wistful. Maybe Pete is just projecting. It used to scare him, those first few years of his first real relationship, the way the border between Chasten and his own self sometimes seems to billow and waft. Like a glinting, sunlit ream of soap. Nowadays, he’s glad for those moments of connection. It’s so rarely it’s just the two of them, their hands clasped together.

His voice is much rawer, than he anticipated when he finally answers. “Let’s -- just sit here for a moment. I never get to just sit, and just think, and just look at you, and not decide on anything.”

Chasten’s hands tighten around his. “So look at me, babe.” He grimaces. “Maybe you can still spot the ghost of my youth somewhere …”

“Oh, like it’s you who’s been sprouting gray hair among the two of us.”

But he does look at Chasten. Looks at the swoop of his widow’s peak, and that stoop of his shoulders that must be memorialized in his own skin by now, from how often he’s slung his arms around them. Makes his dimples carve deeper into his cheeks just by looking at them. Looks into his eyes, which stay steady. A part of him, the part that’s always chronicling and comparing and weaving narratives, wonders if the kids will remember them as they are right now. Just as well, they might keep superimposing images, day by day, then weekend by weekend, then holiday by holiday, until one of them dies.

“Joey,” Chasten says -- and never has the quivering curtain of silence been cut more softly -- “is doing good on his milestones. I talked to Ms Mendes today --”

“Wasn’t there a parent-teacher-conference we were supposed to attend?”

“That’s the week of the G8 in Rio. If you want, I’m sure she can schedule a meeting with both of us?”

Pete sighs heavily, and shrugs. “It’s alright. Come January, we’ll have all the time in the world to attend parent-teacher-conferences.”

***

**Tuesday, January 25th, 2029**

**The Buttigiegs’ Townhouse** **  
** **Foggy Bottom Neighborhood, Washington, D.C.**

Chasten would be lying to himself -- and for that, he is really getting much too old -- if he pretends that Peter being late coming home from his meeting doesn’t miff him. Could well be that those expectations that Peter’d be a family man first and foremost post-presidency, those hopes he’s quietly kept watering for eight long, sometimes grueling, years, were overblown from the beginning, yes. And yes, the days of their Christmas breakfasts being cut short by some maniac with a nuke halfway around the globe are over, at least. And legacies need to be tended to, yes. 

But so do marriages. 

The kids would not have to be picked up from school for another two hours. Aimlessly, Chasten lets his gaze wander around their new home. They managed to make the White House feel lived-in. This will work out. 

Boxes and boxes, unopened, are stacked atop each other up to the stylish deep windowsills. For a moment, he considers starting to unpack them, but then he sinks back onto the brand-new couch. It’s Peter’s job as much as his own.

Instead, he looks at his phone, just as a new message from Heidi trundles in. They’ve been friends ever since college, but, really, it’s been her irreverence when it came to the whole being-First-Gentleman-thing that has strengthened their bond over the last couple of years. 

He opens the message.

**lol does lis smith have a crush on your husband**

It’s a link to an NBC YouTube video, posted a few days ago. 

***

The morning of the day Nimrata Nikki Haley will be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States, Lis Smith makes it just in time to her booking on Yamiche Alcindor’s NBC nine a.m. show. Somebody is brushing her cheeks with what she dares to assume is bronzer --  _ fucking East Coast winters _ \--, and Yamiche, who she will readily admit was a right pain in the ass in the White House Press Room before she got the big TV gig, gives her and the other guests a run-down of today’s topics. 

“Lis, Senator Eisenberg, Mayor Riley -- I know it’s not my style usually, but today, I’d love a touch of the personal.” She cracks the knuckles of her fingers. “It’s inauguration day. The end of the Buttigieg era. The people are tired of policy debates. Throw them a bone.”

_ I guess it’s true what they say of TV’s corrupting influence on journalists. _

Eisenberg smiles as brightly and vacantly as he usually does.  _ Assembling his bouquet of a flowery fucking revisionist non-answer. _

_ *** _

“-- and Nikki Haley never was what they like to call a rough or uncut diamond. I mean, her political athleticism -- the way she always manages to make clear the values she stands for and still score political wins -- that is innate with her.” Eisenberg has apparently tucked away his memory of the Trump years as neatly as he’s tucked his Ken-doll tight white shirt into his equally tight suitpants.  _ Fucking arrogant fop. _

Yamiche seems to think so, too, but she only reprimands him with a pursed-lipped nod, and turns to Lis. “Speaking of those things -- we here at  _ Today  _ recently unearthed a Maureen Dowd column in which she called you, Lis, and I quote, ‘Mayor Pete’s Pygmalion’. Do you view yourself that way?”

Lis flashes her a smile and cocks her head. It’s already front-heavy with the weight of the day. “I’m afraid that might -- hmm -- overstate even my political imagination, Yamiche. You see, the Mayor Pete I met almost a decade and a half ago wasn’t substantially different from our brilliant and accomplished President Pete -- and I’ll probably be overusing that word, President, today, while I still can. The scale was different, yes. But him …”

Suddenly, her fake lashes hurt. At least she hopes they do. Because a bout of tears is really the last fucking thing she need on national TV.  _ Fuck being menopausal. _ She takes a deep breath and continues to smile while she speaks, the one big lesson twenty years of media appearances have taught her.

“... but his essence hasn’t changed. At all, from my perspective. People don’t believe me when I say this, but I mean it: Something in me knew he could make it, we could make it, when I first met him. And I’m so proud that after thirteen years …” She stumbles. 

_ Where the fuck am I going with that? _

“I’m just proud he’s stayed himself,” she finishes, a bit lamely, and blames the heat on her cheeks on the studio lights.

Eisenberg next to her snickers like a schoolboy.  _ I fucking wish I’d called in remotely. I’d take fucking COVID back to not have to cross paths with this idiot.  _ Yamiche’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows don’t flinch. “You haven’t been his Chief of Staff for years now. Do you still talk to each other on the regular?”

“We do. Yes, we do. Kids a few inches taller each time I see them, but they are just insanely funny. So lovely.” A beat passes. “And Chasten too, of course.”

While Mayor Riley hacks into Eisenberg over sweeping Haley’s support of the Trumps under the rug, Lis almost chews through her tongue.  _ What the fucking hell was that? _

_ *** _

Chasten should know better than to thumb through a YouTube comments section under a news channel, but he does it anyway. By and large, it seems Heidi is not alone in her perception that Lis sounds like the girl from the Hallmark movie who has to confront her first and only small-town love upon returning home. 

Then, the doorbell rings, a shrill noise that they should absolutely reprogram ASAP. He rips his gaze off the display and stands up to answer it. Probably something somebody ordered. More boxes.

But he opens the door and there stands Peter, next to his Secret Service agent, Violet. He hasn’t even articulated a thought before his husband cuts him off: “Seems like eight years of having doors open by magic does something to your brain. I’m sorry for rousing you, love. I forgot my keys at home.” He smiles sheepishly.

His nose and the apples of his cheeks have turned pink with cold. Peter must have walked the three blocks from the office. They’ve both been wallowing in their brand-new ability to just stroll through the neighborhood.

Chasten laughs. “Throw in an apology for dragging out your meeting and I’ll give you a two-for-one deal on my forgiveness.”

“Always so generous …” He turns his torso and waves. “Bye, Violet! Have a good afternoon!”

“See you, Mr President! See you, Mr Buttigieg!”

The door clicks behind her.

“So, what took you guys so unfathomably long?”

Peter takes off his coat. “They’re already talking about the library. It’s a bit of a hassle; Notre Dame has signaled an interest, but maybe that would send the wrong message … in any case, Lis and the crew all say hi.” He pecks Chasten on the cheek. His lips are dry and cold, and he smells like the snow that still hasn’t fallen this winter.

As they climb up the stairs to the not-yet-unboxed living room, Chasten automatically takes his hand. His fingers are icy as well.

Now they warm to his clasp. 

“Pick up the kids together at three?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, a big thank-you to Pristine, for beta'ing one last time. And for reminding me this fic even existed.


End file.
